For several years, the private TV Torrent tracker scene has been dominated by three major players – BitMeTV, TVTorrents.Com and Tv.Torrents.Ro. Although there have been many smaller sites popping up on a regular basis, no one has really been able to pose a challenge for these three tracker so far. This however might soon change. Several promising new TV trackers have launched in the last couple of months that seem to have the potential to be the next BMTV (or even more). One of them is STR (ShareTheRemote) which we covered earlier. This post features BTN, another feature rich TV tracker that aims to revolutionize this niche. Launched to the public last January, BTN is already making waves in the BitTorrent scene – it packed with tons of unique features, has great pre times and is ratio free.
Although BTN has been online since 2009, it wasn’t well known until January/February 2010. Even today, the site is one of those discrete trackers which doesn’t allow posting of URL or full name in public. However, that hasn’t stopped avid torrenters from getting into the tracker. Despite being invite only since launch BTN has already attracted close to 3000 active members which is quite impressive. This may have been because there was a lot of hype about BTN during the first few days since their public launch. What’s important is that the tracker has managed to actually live up to that hype.
As we mentioned in the first paragraph, BTN is a feature rich site. It’s based on Gazelle codebase and is a prime example of how customizable & flexible this tracker script by What.CD’s coders actually is. One of the most noticeable innovations on this site is the series pages. At BTN, each TV series has it’s own page. In this page, all torrents related to a specific series are indexed. Individual episodes are separated from full season packs and this makes it a lot easier to find the torrents you need. That’s not all – series pages also hold a lot of additional information about the actual TV show. This includes series info, latest episode details, next episode details. series discussions, fan art, posters, YouTube links, statistics, actor information (upcoming feature) and it even integrates any pending/fulfilled torrent requests related to the show. Getting to a series page is easy – just click on a show name or a banner on main torrent index.
Additionally, you may notice that some of the torrents are marked with a special symbol on the main index. The ones with green background and numbers stand for upload multipliers. The yellow lighting symbol indicates that it’s a FastTorrent. FastTorrents are torrents served on high speed (24mbit or more) lines - usually seedbox hosted uploads.
But that’s not all, there are tons of other features hidden on this gem of a tracker. Following is a summary of some noticeable value added features you can find on BTN:
- TV Schedule – A daily updated broadcast schedule for major TV shows aired on US networks
- TV Favorites – A user customizable page where you can add and monitor your favorite TV shows
- Shows List – A full list of shows indexed on BTN
- Series List - A full index of series page for all shows tracked on BTN, which can be filtered by network, first letter, status or night
- PreDB – BTN pre database
- Knowledge Base – Site help, getting started manual, tutorials and more
All of the above can easily be accessed from the ‘Links’ section on site homepage.
Another highlight of this tracker are the blazing fast torrent indexing speeds. Although TV trackers don’t usually care a lot about pre times, BTN seems to take them seriously. According to all time site statistics on irc://irc.p2p-net.eu/tr.chat, BTN is among the top 10 fastest trackers based on the number of overall race wins:
And before we forget, BTN is a ratio free tracker. You do not need to maintain a global upload : download ratio as on most other private trackers. However there are some other rules all members must adhere to:
- There is NO RATIO.
- Seed all individual TV eps 1:1 or 24 hours.
- Seed all Season packs 1:1 or 120 hours.
- Torrents will not be considered a HnR if you download less than 10%, dont abuse this.
- If you pause a torrent, you have 12 hours to restart it or it will become a HnR.
- Seeding torrents will not show as a HnR.
- You MUST seed the torrent to the required amounts within 2 weeks or you will receive a warning or even a ban.
-Quoted from BTN rules page
To make life easier for it’s members, BTN also maintains a bonus system. Bonus points are awarded for seeding completed torrents. Every 15 minutes you are awarded 0.25 points for each completed torrent you're seeding. You can spend bonus points at the BP Store. The store allows you to exchange upload credit/points, gift credits to others and even purchase site invites.
How to get into BTN
No matter how good a tracker is, it would be of little use to our readers if there was no way to get in. Thankfully, BTN is not an uber l33t elite tracker beyond reach of everyone. Although it’s not open for signup, there are ways interested members can join for free. Earlier on, BTN used to recruit members through IRC. They have now made things easier for applicants (and for those who don’t like IRC) and have made available a web based invite application. There are 11 questions you need to answer and if your application is accepted by staff, you will receive a BTN invite.
Site Name: BTN
Invite Applications URL: http://passmetheremote.org/
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